On the seventh day, the Lord rested–but that is a luxury that the Israeli Defense Forces can ill afford.
This is the seventh day of captivity for the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers. Some well-meaning Jews have already compared them to the mainly Christian girls in Nigeria who were also captured by Islamist terrorists. The girls were taken on April 15th and have, so far, been in captivity for sixty-six days.
Google rates the number of times that people re-tweet over time a particular hashtag. The maximum is expressed as 100. In May 2014, #BringBackOurGirls” was rated 100. Today, it is rated at nine. People have a really short attention span and lead busy lives. So far, “#BringBackOurBoys” and “#EyalGiladNaftali” register as 0. However, according to Hashtracking.com, #EyalGiladNaftali has been re-tweeted 1,500 times.
Also, as Carolyn Glick has noted, the media has viewed the boys, not their captors, as blameworthy. The boys have been described as “settlers,” “yeshiva students,” members of “Gush Etzion.” These are viewed as colonialist crimes. Bombing, airplane hijacking, and kidnapping are the only things that an allegedly “oppressed” people can do to express their righteous anger and possibly free some of their prisoners.
The world at large–the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, etc.–have not exactly warmed to the plight of these three Israeli boys. From their point of view, Israel’s very existence is, allegedly, a colonialist crime, and the United Nations (and increasingly, the United States) view whatever Palestinians do as justified and whatever Israelis do to save their own lives when no one else will come to their aid as unjustified. Secretary of State John Kerry calls for “restraint on both sides“; this usually means that Israel has to stop all activities of self-defense so that the Palestinians can continue their non-stop aggression. Even now, Hamas continues to launch rockets from Gaza into southern Israel.
No one is condemning the smirking epidemic of three fingered salutes by Palestinian children. Each finger stands for one of the kidnapped boys and they are mocking the Jews and celebrating the kidnapping. An entire next generation of Palestinian children are being spoiled, destroyed, taught to glorify hate, cruelty, violence, and death.
As to the media: On June 18, 2014, the New York Times had the strangest, spookiest placement for their coverage of the Prayer Vigils held in New York City for Eyal, Gilad and Naftali. It appeared on page A24–opposite the Obituaries of a novelist, a children’s book editor, and a copy-writer. I was quite taken aback. This coverage might have appeared in the City section or perhaps as news, earlier on. It was a fairly sympathetic piece; is this the reason that editors placed it among the Obituaries? Is it entirely coincidental, accidental, or is someone assuming, even actually wishing that these boys are dead? What other rational explanation can there be for such a bizarre placement?
Israelis and all those who support civilization are waiting for the return of these boys. Look at the Arab Middle East. Islamists are slaughtering each other as well as innocent civilians. The Muslim-on-Muslim carnage is barbaric, endless. Mainly, the world looks away or at least, does not intervene. It is too late. And yet, it will also be too late for the West if triumphant Caliphate-style Islamists attack the United States–something they are already threatening to do.
Senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil has already called for a new uprising (Intifada) on the West Bank: “It will go off when enough pressure is exerted on Palestinian people.” There is a power struggle going on between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. This complicates everything further.
Israelis and their supporters are re-living the more than five year trauma of waiting for Gilad Shalit. Waiting is a hellish game. I hope and pray that the IDF does not listen to calls for “restraint” and manages to destroy Hamas’s infra-structure on the West Bank.
The IDF Media News Service has provided a continuous time line of the kidnapping:
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